Doing Visual Research with Children and Young People

Pat Thomson, Pat Thomson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781135265946
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Visual media offer powerful communication opportunities. Doing Visual Research with Children and Young People explores the methodological, ethical, representational and theoretical issues surrounding image-based research with children and young people. It provides well-argued and illustrated resources to guide novice and experienced researchers through the challenges and benefits of visual research.

Because new digital technologies have made it easier and cheaper to work with visual media, Pat Thomson brings together an international body of leading researchers who use a range of media to produce research data and communicate findings. Situating their discussions of visual research approaches within the context of actual research projects in communities and schools, and discussing a range of media from drawings, painting, collage and montages to film, video, photographs and new media, the book offers practical pointers for conducting research. These include

• why visual research is used
• how to involve children and young people as co–researchers
• complexities in analysis of images and the ethics of working visually
• institutional difficulties that can arise when working with a 'visual voice'
• how to manage resources in research projects

Doing Visual Research with Children and Young People will be an ideal guide for researchers both at undergraduate and postgraduate level across disciplines, including education, youth and social work, health and nursing, criminology and community studies. It will also act as an up-to-date resource on this rapidly changing approach for practitioners working in the field.

Pat Thomson is Professor of Education and Director of Research in the School of Education, University of Nottingham, UK. She is a former school principal of disadvantaged schools in Australia.

Chapter 1
Children and young people

Voices in visual research

Pat Thomson

There is no biological ‘truth’ to suggest that being young equates with nothing to say. As scholars involved in the ‘new’ childhood studies argue, it is a product of our place and times to judge the nature and capabilities of people on the basis of their age. Not very long ago children in Western countries were paid workers, and many still work as carers and doing home duties, while the exploitation of child labour remains a dreadful reality in some parts of the world. However, despite the evidence that connections between age and the capacity to take responsibility are culturally constructed, we more often than not see children and young people as persons whose views are completely ‘immature’ and not to be taken seriously (Ariès, 1962; James & Prout, 1997; Mason & Fattore, 2005; Qvortrup, Bardy, Sigritta, & Wintersberger, 1994).

Researchers who contributed to this book share the view that children and young people are capable of providing expert testimony about their experiences, associations and lifestyles. Instead of seeing children and young people simply as family members or students or as ‘becomings’, that is, people not yet mature enough to have an opinion or act responsibly, contributors to this volume see them as competent ‘beings’ whose views, actions and choices are of value (see Alanen & Mayall, 2001 for further discussion). Indeed, the perspectives of children and young people are of interest to contemporary social scientists precisely because they offer specific and unique insights–about their everyday lives at home and school and their view and hopes for their futures–which can easily slip below the horizons of older inquirers. The omission of these perspectives can easily lead to researchers making interpretations and representations that are very short-sighted and which miss the point.

The writers represented here also share the view that it is the right of children and young people to have a say about things that concern them. This view is evidenced in the United Nations Convention on the Human Rights of the Child (United Nations (UN), 1990), which goes beyond arguing for the protection of children from abuse and exploitation to spell out an entitlement to education, health and well being, and to set out the case for children and young people having civil and political rights. Article 12 of the Convention states that governments and nations

shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.

This article ascribes to children and young people an entitlement to participate in discussion and decisions, and an obligation on institutions to ensure that this happens. Many social scientists, and all of those in this book, now take this also to mean a right to a view about, and in, research which concerns them.

The notion of the right of children and young people to speak has also been enacted in public policy. For example, in many English speaking and European nations, children and young people have emerged not simply as objects of school change, but also as participants in its production. In Australia student participation (Holdsworth, 2000a, 2000b; Thomson & Holdsworth, 2003; Thomson, McQuade, & Rochford, 2005), and in the UK ‘pupil consultation’ and ‘pupil voice’ (Flutter & Rudduck, 2004; McBeath, 1999; Macbeath, Demetriou, Rudduck, & Myers, 2003; Rudduck & Flutter, 2000, 2004a, 2004b), have had official policy endorsement, whereas in the US interest in the active role of students in change has largely emerged from reform movements and through opposition to top-down reforms (Cook-Sather, 2002; Mitra, 2003; Nieto, 1994; Rubin & Silva, 2003; Shultz & Cook-Sather, 2001; Soohoo, 1993; Wasley, Hampel, & Clark, 1997; Wilson & Corbett, 2001). These trends are of particular interest to social science researchers because they offer the opportunity to consider the rhetoric and reality of children’s rights and citizenship.

The two beliefs in and about children and young people–their capacity to speak, and their right to do so–come together in the notion of ‘voice’.

Social science research finds voice(s)

Many social scientists and social activists became interested in the idea of voice through critical analyses of the knowledges that were produced and valued in the academy, policy and in professional contexts. Feminist scholars, for example, argued that the perspectives of women were largely invisible across the disciplines (e.g. Alcoff & Potter, 1993; Haraway, 1990; Lather, 1991), and postcolonial scholars argued for their subjugated knowledges to be respected but not incorporated (e.g. Bhabha, 1984; Spivak, 1988); both suggested that dominant forms of knowledge (and their advocates) needed to move from centre stage and make room for more diverse meanings, and ways of making meaning (e.g. Weiler, 2001). The move to ‘voice’ resulted in a range of new courses in schools and universities, such as women’s, queer, dis/ability and postcolonial studies. It also heralded radical changes in existing disciplines such as history, politics, medicine, sociology, law and education. The subsequent shift from the idea of a singular (oppressed) voice to diverse and multiple voices was not without heated debate, but it is now more generally accepted by researchers (if not policymak-ers), that it is not possible to write about any particular social group as if they spoke as one. Thus, while the idea of ‘voice’ is still used in social science, it is now most often very specifically situated and its internal modulations and variations carefully represented.

The idea of voice was also taken up through research methodology/ies where there were ongoing efforts made to find ways to bring previously unheard voices into scholarly and associated professional conversations–‘giving voice to the voiceless’ (e.g. Visweswaren, 1994). Researchers became interested in a range of qualitative methodologies and the potential they offered to allow marginalized groups to (apparently) speak for themselves (Reinharz, 1992). Discussions–about the power relationships inherent in research and the ways in which these worked against voices being heard and truthfully represented–were foregrounded (Ribbens & Edwards, 1998). Debates–such as whether there could ever be situations where researcher and researched were on an equal footing and how those being researched might become co-researchers–began and are still not settled. Lather (2007, p. 136) argues that qualitative researchers became too obsessed with voices, romanticizing what research informants say, and indulging in ‘confessional tales, authorial self-revelation … the reinscription of some unproblematic real’. She argues instead for ‘complexity, partial truths, and multiple subjectivities’.

Together with voice, the notion of rights also permeated social science and was primarily folded into new approaches to research ethics. Practices such as the right to informed consent, and the right to withdraw from participation in research, can also be seen as expressions of the voices of research participants. These are perhaps a somewhat minimalist version of voice, but it is certainly a case of research ‘voice or exit’ (Hirschman, 1970). ‘Ethics’ is an area, however, where there are still mixed views: it is common practice to ask parental permission to conduct research with children, for example, but researchers often pay only lip-service to explaining the purposes, uses and practices of their research to children and young people. Getting their permission for involvement is often bypassed.

As part of these more general shifts in research practice, those social scientists whose research concerned children and young people widened their search for ways to solicit their views and voices and to represent them in publications. They asked–what methods can most adequately elicit the voices of youthful participants? What are the advantages and limitations of interviews and focus groups? How might less popular approaches such as life histories and narrative more adequately ‘give voice’? These re-searching questions led to an interest in visual research. It seemed to offer different ways to elicit the experiences, opinions and perspectives of children and young people, as well as a new means of involving them as producers of knowledge. This is discussed further later in the chapter.

Researching voices is complex

Voice is generally taken to mean ‘having a say’, but as Britzman (1989, p. 146) notes, the word carries three sets of meanings:

The concept of voice spans literal, metaphorical and political terrains: in its literal sense, voice represents the speech and perspective of the speaker; metaphorically, voice spans inflection, tone, accent, style and the qualities and feelings conveyed by the speaker’s words; and politically, a construct of voice attests to the right of speaking and being represented.

So, voice can mean not only having a say, but also refers to the language, emotional components and non-verbal means used to express opinions. Undertaking research which attends to voice may thus mean listening to things that are unsaid and/or not what we expect. Researchers can be challenged by the words that come from the mouths of children and young people, but a commitment to hearing marginalized voices requires not censoring particular views and modes of expression. It may be hard to hear confrontative stories and terms, but listening does not equate with condoning (see the last chapter in Fine & Weis, 1998 for a discussion about violent voices).

As noted earlier, the notion of voice suggests both a particular point of view, and also one which is not universal. Children and young people do not speak as one–just like adults, they have different experiences, opinions and modes of expression. However, the situation is more complex than this, with diversity not being the only complicating factor to work with voice. According to Hadfield and Haw (2001) there are not just differences between people, but each individual also uses more than one voice. They nominate three:

1. Authoritative. This is a representative voice intended to speak on behalf of a group–children say, adolescents believe…. It is exercised politically in consultations, and through elected bodies such as councils and working parties. Researchers also elicit an authoritative voice: through surveys, where majority opinions are taken to be representative of a larger group; through the use of quotations either from interviews which have been coded and thematized or selected from a discourse analysis; or through narratives which ‘ring true’.
2. Critical. This voice is intended to challenge the status quo. It may be directed towards policies and practices, or towards stereotypical portrayals. It may also mean putting into the public arena perspectives that are rarely, if ever, heard. As already noted, this is the voice which social scientists concerned with equity and inclusion work to bring into research practices and knowledge-producing communities.
3. Therapeutic. This voice occurs in safe spaces where people are able to discuss painful and/or difficult experiences and are then supported to find ways of dealing with them. Speaking with the therapeutic voice is not simply a matter of personally coping, but also of seeing the social production of seemingly individual problems. The therapeutic voice may be deliberately elicited in qualitative research with vulnerable populations. Ethical guidelines draw attention to situations where the therapeutic voice is likely to be evoked, require researchers to make clear to participants the likelihood of distress, and demand that researchers ensure that no harm comes to research subjects. In the case of children and young people, working with the therap...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• List of illustrations
• Notes on contributors
• Preface
• 1 Children and young people: voices in visual research
• Part I Why do visual research?
• Part II Processes, possibilities and dilemmas
• Appendix: Finding out more